BRIAN RIHLMANN - POEMS

Brian Rihlmann lives in Reno, Nevada. His work has appeared in many magazines, including Chiron Review, The Main Street Rag, The American Journal Of Poetry, and New York Quarterly. He has authored three collections of poetry, most recently “A Screaming Place,” (2021) by Cajun Mutt Press.

​Werewolves

​as Tony departs for the evening 
leaving me alone in the building 
he says Make sure ya
lock this door....
it’s getting dark and
a lotta whack jobs 
come through here at night
Ok, I say, Have a good one
 
I follow him out and stand there
a moment, peering into the twilight
he’s not wrong
about a lot of people 
walking through here
though I see no one now
 
the road through the grounds
is a shortcut to the mental hospital 
the veteran’s hospital 
a direct path for day laborers and hobos
on their way to Fisherman’s Park
the river and the rails 
 
I see them throughout the day
some hobble through on crutches 
they carry their lives in duffle bags
or shopping carts
they shuffle through
usually with their heads down
and then disappear 
 
as I go back in and lock the door 
against the coming darkness 
I wonder if they transform
into werewolves at night
like we obviously believe 

​Puzzles 
 

​I was told you’d suffered a
“nervous breakdown”
after your husband’s death
with no explanation 
of what that really meant--
other than leaving your
teenage son to fend for himself 
while you took off 
for your sister’s in Florida 
 
after my own experiences 
I have questions...
but there’s no one to ask
no one left who knows
 
did you ever lock yourself up
in a room alone
whispering secrets 
to a bottle, the moon,
the moths orbiting 
a single flickering bulb?
 
did you ever rage at strangers 
for no good reason?
scream at life for its cruelty? 
tell god to go fuck himself?
 
did you rock yourself in corners
lie down in dark closets
pretending you were there
in the casket beside him?
 
did you ever pace the house
eyeballing every knife and rafter
and bottle of pills?
 
did the sunshine
and the terrible Florida heat
sweat the grief and madness 
from your pores?
did time heal your wounds?
why did you never remarry?
 
you never seemed broken to me
I remember your silly laugh
your crooked smile 
and how sometimes 
you’d bake cookies at 2 a.m.
 
I remember your oil paintings--
almost always landscapes
old houses and barns
or ships alone at sea 
under darkened skies
scarcely any people--
much like most of my photographs 
 
and the jigsaw puzzles you loved--
I’d sit beside you and help
as you worked slowly, meticulously, 
separating by color and pattern 
then fitting each tiny piece carefully 
into place
 

​Linus, Where Can You Be?

​as the wind stripped the last 
of the autumn leaves away
and sent them tumbling 
ass over teakettle 
through the neighborhood 
I stood on a street corner
staring at the saddest tree
I ever saw--
a skeletal, barren thing
a feeble sapling 
with scarcely any branches
it reminded me of that tree 
from a Charlie Brown Christmas 
a single ornament 
would have killed it 
and where was Linus
with his security blanket 
when you needed him?
I wished I had a magic blanket
like that...
wished I had one 
big enough for the tree
and myself and the whole world
swaddle us all in baby blue 
like a robins egg
let us peck our way out
and start over 
but I didn’t have one
or anything like it
and I looked but Linus wasn’t around 
so I just walked on home
went inside
and locked the door

Consolation ​

​maybe nobody should feel
like a cipher, yet
so many do
and i'm not sure 
what can be done 
about that
 
our glory days
(if we have any)
are short lived
one cannot simply
be restored
like a classic car
rusting quietly in a field
 
it's November
the acorns
are falling now
is it any consolation
to the vast majority of them
that they are not destined
for treehood
but only to be eaten
by squirrels
or crushed underfoot
to become soil
again?
 
i force gratitude
for the knowledge
that at least something
might grow out of me
hopefully something better
than this
 
it comes easy as smiling 
for a group photo
a stranger's arm draped 
over my shoulders

Varieties Of Worthlessness ​

​The pundit who
talks for a living,
who interviews people
and spreads hatred
for the disenfranchised;
he complains that 
this or that group 
produces nothing of
value....therefore
they are worthless.
I can imagine myself 
on his show, and
reminding him, that he
is a man, who does nothing
but talk, for a living.
And he’d respond--
What about you?
What do you do?
I’d tell him I’m currently 
unemployed, and his 
audience would laugh
and jeer, and I’d say--
You know, I guess it 
IS funny....I may be 
a loser, but I’d rather
produce nothing
than what you produce.